The Wide World of Podcasts: NHPR Producers Give Their Recommendations

It's a golden age for podcasting, with thousands you can listen to any time, anywhere. NHPR producers discuss the latest trends in podcasting, and give their picks for all kinds of listening, from in-depth reporting, to storytelling, to comedy, and more.

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GUESTS:

Rebecca Lavoie - NHPR’s Digital Director, but she’s also the host and producer of several podcasts, including one which reviews other podcasts. That show is called Crime Writers On…, and it’s been downloaded more than twelve million times.

Maureen McMurray - Director, Content Innovation and Audience Development at NHPR. She is the former executive producer for the Creative Production Unit at NHPR, which produces Civics 101, Word of Mouth, and Outside/In. She has also worked as a producer on both the Catholic Channel on Sirius/XM and on Martha Steward Living Radio.

Justine Paradis - Producer/reporter for NHPR’s podcasts Outside/In, Civics 101, and Word of Mouth – also formerly a producer at Millennial podcast from Radiotopia. She also organizes occasional “listening nights” and writes a podcast + media email newsletter, “sheets to the wind”.

Below is a list of podcasts that began as podcasts, not as radio shows that were converted to podcasts, such as mainstays like This American Life or Radiolab, though they may now air on some radio stations.

Host Sarah Koenig and her team launched the podcast boom with their narrative nonfiction story, which is told over multiple episodes. They investigate the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, a high school student in Baltimore, and the conviction of her ex-boyfriend, high schooler Adnan Masud Syed, by revisiting key locations, talking to witnesses, and sharing their own thoughts about the case.

Twenty minutes a day, every weekday, this podcast produced by the New York Times and hosted by Michael Barbaro covers news by talking to reporters and those involved in stories, and provides context. NHPR will start airing The Daily on Monday, July 9th at 6:30 PM.

In the first season of this investigative reporting podcast, reporter Madaleine Baran and her team reported on the investigation surrounding the disappearance of Jacob Wetterling in 1989. Shortly before the release of the first episode, Danny Heinrich confessed to the murder. In Season 2, the team moved to Mississippi for a year to look at the case surrounding Curtis Flowers, who has been tried six times for the death penalty for a quadruple homicide in a furniture store.

Rukmini Callimachi, a reporter for the New York Times who covers ISIS, takes listeners inside her reporting. She reports from a hotel room in Canada with a former ISIS member, in Mosul after ISIS fell, and in a refugee camps to speak with girls who escaped captivity.

Short documentaries and adventures produced by Josie Long for BBC Radio. Phil Smith is a frequent contributor and one of my favorite makers. He'll often use poetry or literature to frame a piece about contemporary love, relationships, or modern life. For instance, in "A Very Different Time," Smith weaves a reimagining of W.H. Auden's "Paysage Moralisé" with personal accounts of escaping Syria as a refugee.

Not precisely a podcast, but this production group consistently produces some of my very favorite work. Try "A Cow a Day", in which producer Pejk Malinovski follows a cow through the ancient city of Varanasi from sunrise to sunset, or Sally Hership's "As Many Leaves", an audio diary and meditation on heartbreak.

A podcast based out of Australia for Radio International, This is About looks at stories about things that happen to people, from communism, the story of a donor to a fertility clinic, and the life and death of one of the producers of the program, Jesse Cox.

This Kentucky-based podcast from Louisville Public Media and the Kentucky Center for Investigative Journalism follows the story of a preacher turned politician, and the lies that helped fuel his career.

Produced by WFAE, the public radio station based in Charlotte, North Carolina, She Says follows the story of a sexual assault survivor as she tries to find justice in the Mecklenburg County court system.

Rebecca reviews true crime podcasts, films, and television shows for her podcast, Crime Writers On..., and below are some of her favorite picks for serialized and in-depth true crime coverage, and other podcasts she enjoys.

"A twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events."